


Final Gaia: The Light of the Earth!

by chaosSystems



Category: Ultraman Gaia
Genre: F/M, Fight Scenes, First Person Narration, Gen, Possible future!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 02:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12447801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosSystems/pseuds/chaosSystems
Summary: Some time after the events of Gaia Again, the tale of Ultraman Gaia's final battle against an enemy from the past is told from a... different perspective.





	Final Gaia: The Light of the Earth!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/gifts).



Even though I am about to act somewhat nostalgic at length, this truly wasn’t that long ago at all, was it? From my perspective it almost feels like it just happened, but nothing particularly exciting for me had happened since then, so, perhaps that’s incorrect. Certain things like that still don’t register correctly. 

But it’s getting easier.

I suppose it’d be pointless to recount everything. Even still, this is what I remember, if you do not.

GUARD and its branch, XIG, finally had fully repaired itself not long before. After all of those ‘incidents', it was tough, apparently, to acquire the funding necessary to create a new, flying base. It happened regardless, and all original officers were put back to work. 

Aside from one, who continued to study at college, despite keeping in touch with one particular communications officer. He was close to graduating, finally, and she would never let him shirk his duties there. If he wasn’t going to work with her at XIG, he’d achieve his educational dreams, even if, she said, she had to personally drag him through it. She believed in him anyway.

When that college near-graduate first discovered the signals from space, there was that horrible trepidation that everyone had hoped was behind them. Oddly enough, and ominous as well, the Root of Destruction had sent a message, decoded by that troublesome computer, giving the Alchemy Stars an idea of yet another threat that was coming. After all, signals of such intensity were hard to miss, but even harder to properly understand, especially as the studying them lead to malfunctions of the brain.

Is that the term for it? Either way, that’s when I began to take notice.

It all looked so similar, the shambling bodies, trying to find a purpose, their souls void of any freewill. Yet, oddly, anger remained, a powerful need to destroy. To tear apart anything that got in their way.

The riots started and then the wounded began piling up. The sick came next, children and the elderly all across the world falling ill, as if their bodies were burning up from the inside out. 

Abject chaos was on the horizon, and worse yet, some of the natural super beasts began to stir in a frenzied state. Creeping from their homes, they attacked. 

XIG was dispatched, all while the Stars came to the obvious conclusion that the space signals were not only the cause for these disturbances… but they had been seen before.

Underneath layer upon layer of information (some of which took the immediate notice of Hiroya Fujimiya) there was a pattern that hadn’t been seen for some years, even after the last battle against the Root of Destruction. A wavelength that had caused such hysteria before, followed closely by mass destruction. 

A Wave Life-Form still existed. A ‘Mezard’ still roamed the universe. 

And, finally, it was coming straight for Earth.

‘How and why’ were conjecture at the time. You had a theory too, didn’t you? That the Life-Form was possibly ‘quantumly locked’ outside of the universe for ages? Someone else suggested the Root of Destruction had freed it, or even pulled it from another point in the timeline from its own dimension.

Either way, this thing, this ‘Hyper Mezard’, was incredibly dangerous. Able to affect humankind from such a vast distance, able to even turn the creatures of the world against humanity… this would be yet another battle that would need the Ultramen.

The undersea people of Rinar and the Stars managed to contact each other through connected sources (as it were), and, for the first time in months, there was a plan of action. If GUARD could keep the peace for just long enough, perhaps there was still a chance to keep the world of losing itself to a manufactured madness. 

Ultimately, there just wasn’t enough time. Who could have predicted such a thing, however? Who could have known what the Hyper Mezard really was?

Even as Hiroya protected his wife during a panicked attack by yet another Tigris, harnessing a ‘special Light’ for himself, there was a looming doom. The reporter, Reiko, once more got her ever-reliable cameraman to film the illustrious scene, seeing Hiroya take on the role of a guardian of Earth again. The Earth responded to his summons, ‘Light’ being generated from seemingly nowhere, or from within. As mysterious as it was, Agul rose to the challenge presented before him, a brilliant burst allowing that towering, blue and silver warrior to appear over the heads of the terrified masses.

As he grappled with that new Tigris, the true villain made itself known.

It made itself well-known, all around the world, even as Reiko’s broadcast was cut to nothing but static and an ear-splitting sound. 

Appearing like a shadow over the worst affected cities on Earth, its influence there the strongest, its ‘points of contact’ having been made, the singular being existed many times at once. 1..5…7… 10.

10 forms of the being from another dimension loomed over humanity, looking like a horrid, rotting shroud, mocking it, taunting it, its voice rocking the collective consciousnesses, speaking to all at once. 

“LESSER BEINGS. FAKE BEINGS. LESSER! FAKE! NOT REAL! NONE IS REAL!”

Words broken and angry, they hit like sledgehammer both within the brain, and within the gut, those hospitalized sometimes lapsing into critical condition as their mental health deteriorated. 

The Xig’s Aerial Base 2 was put on full alert, and GUARD worldwide was deployed, calling in every able-bodied member they had. 

Though Agul somehow produced the Light, he wasn’t enough to battle the last Mezard, the fiendish destroyer lashing out at him from all angles, no amount of his energy or physical attacks being enough to so much as register to the creature, safe in its own dimension. As Hiroya struggled, so did XIG, trying to aide their ally to absolutely no avail. 

Nothing could pull the Mezard from its multiple points in reality, his quantum displacement being far too complex. Even still, the XIG Fighters scrambled, Team Falcon Leader Yoneda even doing everything he could to keep the fully sortied squads alive.

To prevent Team Crow pilot Tadeno from being blindsided by the shifting Mezard, he even dangerously knocked her out of the way, their Fighters colliding just so. She was punted clear, but Yoneda, however, was struck nearly completely to the ground. In a fiery explosion, shrapnel from the Fighter marking the ground, Tadeno held onto her keepsake, a Team Falcon pendent, clutching it close.

“Gamu,” a soft plea carried through the command room of the Aerial Base. “Gamu where are you?” Communications operator Atsuko Sasaki kept insisting that Gamu Takayama come in, that he speak to her right that instant.

”You have to come in! I know you’re there! Just speak to me… I need to know you’re… that you’re not…”

As Georgie Leland tried to comfort her friend, tears in her own eyes, the status of the XIG pilots ringing in her own headpiece, a different voice rose.

“...we nearly have it,” that voice said, exhausted but assured. “Atsuko, tell them… we’ve nearly got it.”

”You!” Atsuko shot up in her seat! “Where have you been?! That lab is a deathtrap!”

“You’re totally right, but… the machine is working. Almost.”

”A-almost?”

“The interference is strong. But we’ve worked up a theory.”

Within that hidden lab, nestled away in the mountains of Japan, members of the Alchemy Stars were hard at work, perfecting a haphazardly assembled ‘Light Engine’. 

“This will work like a giant Esplender. Well, kind of. We’re drawing latent energy, and we still need to send the information elsewhere…”

”You can’t just change using it? Then… then what’s the point, Gamu?”

”There’s not enough of… of the Light, Atsuko. The Rinar can’t give us any more. But it’s still there. The planet can still generate it, but not just in the way we think. We can’t just keep taking from the Earth…”

”Then where is it going to come from?”

”We saw, when Agul fought the Wave Life-Form… when he transformed. I think I’ve figured this out. We just need a little cooperation.”

“From who? Where? If that’s what it takes, I’ll go down in the Bison myself and do whatever has to be done!”

”Hey, hey! Nothing so drastic.. yet. Actually… Atsuko….”

”If you’re about to tell me ‘not to do it’, or something, then forget it. Tell me what has to be done!”

”I… need you to take Hiroya somewhere. Get Team Hercules and be as quick as possible.’

“Okay! Okay, we can do that. Georgie, relay the orders. What’s the location?”

”…first, Atsuko, in case something happens, I don’t want to die an undergraduate full of regrets.”

”What does that even mean? You’re not going to die, understand?”

”No, no… it just means… after everything. After these fights. After the Destruction Bringer. And now this? I feel like I’ve never even tried to get the words right.”

”..oh. I… I see. Hah. Do you have a crush on me, Gamu?”

They both shared a laugh. 

As Daniel McPhee worked on his ‘inner Light’ collection algorithm, that particular college near-graduate sighed deeply, ignoring the sound of a battalion of fists pounding against the reinforced doors as he applied finishing touches to his own device.

They didn’t have forever. Already, there was a berserk mob out for their blood, controlled by the beast, corrupting them worse by the second.

Team Hercules, with the operators in tow, managed to retrieve the horribly battered, beaten Hiroya, who was carried from the danger of his lost fight by Reiko and her news crew. The fight in the middle of Tokyo raged on, the Fighters merely managing to distract the Mezard long enough for the giant, rolling, combat vehicle Bison to sneak into the fray nearly unnoticed.

“At least Hinaka got to see you being cool,” Reiko told Hiroya as he was hurriedly carried into the Bison. “It’s a lot better than your daughter just seeing toys and statues of you, you know?”

”It only matters if we make it in time,” he groaned. “I held it all off as long as I could.”

”Gamu said they found a way,” Atsuko assured, just as the Bison was rocked by an explosion. “They’ve found a way to bring back our Ultraman!”

All the while, the doors to the Stars’ lab began to fail, creaking and slowly giving way. Yet, there was a spark within the Engine. All the pieces were in place.

”If this works, Gamu,” Daniel began, lips curled with hesitation, “Who knows what could happen? The last time we did this, it was measured and regulated, from primary sources. Are you sure about it?”

”…yeah. Yeah, I really am.”

”Your body could disintegrate instantly…”

“...but if it’s the only chance we got, then it’s what we got. I’ll take it.”

“...good. Alright. I’ll start sending the data. We don’t much time left.”

“...I don’t think we have any at all.” 

Outside of that laboratory was the monstrous specter of the Mezard, its rigid tentacles draping down across the mountains from its body…

The computers were put to work, particular automated programs running as the Light Engine began to hum to life, that tiny spark from before glowing brighter. The Light began to come together into a mass. 

The doors, however, were coming apart. As they gave way, both Stars began to prop up even more their equipment in the way, shoving one server bank after another in front of it, personal projects of Daniel’s being placed there too, sophisticated hunks of metal and circuitry barring the way.

”You have to go, Gamu,” Daniel told, just as the roof of the lab began to scrape away, strip by strip, the metal turning into sand under the touch of the Mezard. “You can’t stay here!”

”What’re you talking about? Don’t say that! I need to help you--”

”Gamu, if you die, there’s no chance. It has to be you. It can’t even be Hiroya. You’re both the keys to the Earth’s future.”

“But--”

The roof began to collapse, a support beam crashing against the ground with an apocalyptic clang! 

“Go! I need to finish this! I can finish this!”

So, with a stunned nod, he went. The Engine continued, illuminating the wrecked laboratory, just as Daniel cleared off his debris-riddled work desk. Some things had to be done by hand. 

And as he ran, escaping through a cramped underground passageway, that near-graduate didn’t look back. 

Not even as he emerged to the surface, the sky entirely darkened by that entity.

Not even as a bolt of energy came down atop the lab, utterly obliterating it, sending him flying. 

A piece of metal stuck in his side, that near-graduate grit his teeth, sucking in air between them as he applied pressure to the wound. There was still time… all that was left was…

Was…

“The Earth Matter Receiver,” Hiroya had been explaining all that time to the XIG operatives there. “It didn’t work before. It needed a second component. Another machine. A relay.”

”The Light Engine…?” Atsuko caught on. 

”Yes. That had it’s own flaws. Today, one of those flaws was… worked out. Ambient Earth Light energy exists, if you try to draw from the correct sources. The Agulater is non-functioning. This is our last chance.” As his fingers, stiff but functioning, ran across a monitor, he gave a nod. “It’ll have to be enough, won’t it?”

Shoulders tense, he flipped switch within the Receiver, its inner chamber slowly churning, rocking ever-so slightly.

“Stand back.” Sliding his arm then, into a slot within the Receiver, Hiroya braced himself. “It has to go through me. That’s all.” Despite what he had said… he wasn’t alone. Reiko’s hand clasp around his own

“I said to st--” Before he could continue to object Georgie, Atsuko and Team Hercules, Shima, Yoshida and Kuwabara, all formed a chain through their hands.

And through that chain came a ‘link’, starting with Hiroya. From Hiroya, as arcs of lightning fizzled around the top of the Receiver, as a strobe effect enveloped them all, like a glimpse into the unknown… came a Light. 

Me.

Pulled from the Earth, channeled through Hiroya, out into the open air, I was able to manifest. My perspective shrunk immediately, from being able to see and watch like an outside observer, with some effort, instead I was now in one place. In a room filled with a spectacular sort of warmth. 

“I wasn’t sure this was how it worked,” he said to me, so serious. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and his brow was furrowed. The stress was eating away at him, but he breathed in hard, as if holding back a sigh. “But if you’re listening now, then listen well. If it can’t be me… then…We don’t have time.”

Hiroya Fujimiya, the host of Agul, reached out a hand. His fingertips brushed up against my consciousness, and I understood, for the very first time, exactly what humanity was. 

“Believe in him, too. Now go, Gaia.”

With those words, my world expanded once again, and I found my anchor-point, the place I knew I was supposed to be. 

Gamu Takayama.

You’re familiar with him, right? 

Looking down at him… you… as my form congealed, as the Light that I am gathered, I found myself wondering, for the first time: what happens next? What happens if this doesn’t work? What happens if I screw up? Could I shoulder the burden of endless failure, if the planet even survived long enough for me to formulate regrets?

And then you looked at me, tired eyes knowing exactly what they were looking at. A word didn’t need to be said.

I believed. 

My Light bonded with your cells, mending the wounds to your body, your nervous system responding, brain firing up. Our beings mingled together once again, but with an excess, an overcharge I had never felt before. I wasn’t just bonding with you, Gamu. Something else was happening.

I could see the entire world as you gritted your teeth, shambling upwards, somehow finding the inner strength to stand once more. Through human eyes, thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, I could see the connection humankind shared which I had missed before, which I had only gleaned through you. 

I heard all of those names, from every landmass, from every one of your countries, cry out. 

Our merger was unstable, my Light seeping out from your injuries even as it attempted to close them. My existence wavered, and your knees were horribly shaky. But I held onto those voices, Gamu, because I recognized them. They were voices I had grown to care for as well. Your mother and father, the Alchemy Stars, XIG, your classmates. 

Hiroya Fuijimiya.

Atsuko Sasaki.

I heard them call for their Ultraman. 

I heard you call my name!

From deep within my home, from within the place I was born, at the end of the tunnel of Light that is this Earth, I drew the power. Power from hearts of humanity, hoping in unison, giving themselves, if even for a moment, to their home! The Light of the Earth!

I could feel the crackle through your skin, the rumble of energy, the waves of change. We transformed!

The Light burst outwards and then upwards, using humanity as its basis for shape, and you as its center, once more we became that silver giant, the weight of the world upon our shoulders. It was different this time, though, wasn’t it? All that great energy, coming from a seemingly endless well, it had done exactly what was intended, but in a way even I didn’t expect. 

Our colors had changed again, the blue of the ocean swirling against the blacks and reds and golds even more, grasping with my red, and a mantle of sorts jutting out from our neck, like a symbol of the power we had now gained. The Light draped down our back and solidified, glowing and simmering brilliantly as the universe opened itself up to us.

Time and space were no longer constraints. With a target in mind, it wasn’t impossible to grasp how to ‘do it’, was it? We could see together, the way in which the last Mezard moved, existing in several different simultaneous locations, and even spots upon a timeline, its own attention having to be divided in some way. From it’s point of view, to a certain extent, it had a linear way of living, dipping in and out of dimension is all. 

As it opened its horrible maw, aiming straight for the new Aerial Base, it wasn’t so hard to simply reach out and stops it, a fist flying straight into its neck. 

It let out a pathetic noise, like a truncated roar. 

“LESSER! LOWER! DESTROY!”

Another hit, a smash to one of its heads, sent it falling through the air. Though it began to displace itself, pulling out from that point in time, all we had to do was unleash a blast of our power, a simple wave of the hand more than enough to keep it from trying to ghost back to its own dimension.

Your attention was elsewhere, divided from mine. You were able to look in yet another place, and then another, our presence appearing all across the world, blocking the rampage from the Mezard, the protrusions of its back flaring outwards in anger each time as we stopped his assaults simultaneously. There was nothing it could do, the destruction ceasing right then and there, each one of its points of attack being halted with a flick of our wrists. 

“LESSER! FAKE! LESSER! YOU DO NOT EXIST!”

It screamed out as loud as it could, the psychic backlash from its anger sure to have ripped minds asunder… except no. It didn’t. You moved too quickly, spreading our arms out, encasing the Mezard in a prison that extended outwards, energies caging it even in its own dimension. 

“DESTROY! LET ME DESTROY! I AM REAL!”

We tore it from its own delusion of grandeur, an illusion greater than any conjured up by the Queen Mezard. With another punch, space-time warped and altered, allowing us to reach into its dimension, then pulling it forth, ripping it right into our world. Right into our hands. Taking this battle down to a single point, right over the ruins of the laboratory, as if we had never moved at all. 

Focused now, we carried the Mezard into space like it was a simple toy, the creature thrashing about, pleading with us as if it suddenly felt sorry for what it had done, its primal noises no longer reaching the ears of its victims. 

With a kick, we launched it outwards, its being trying desperately to escape back to its home, crashing up against the quantum barrier we had trapped it in. It existed for one singular point until we decided it didn’t. It no longer made the rules, or bent them. In fact, all it could do was lash out, attempting to break free. As it did so, we gathered that familiar energy into ourselves, that mantle disappearing back into our form, shooting through our approximation of veins.

Crossing our arms together in an L-shape, each hand as straight as possible, the ‘Perfect Stream’ charged itself. With a flash, it was all over. That beam annihilated the last Mezard on a level that erased its very existence, sending the thing to the oblivion it should have been stuck in before, wiped off the very face of the universe.

No more and never again.

Never again…

It becomes hazy from there even for me as we reentered Earth’s atmosphere as gracefully was we could, faltering only on the very end as the transformation passed, as we separated again. 

Or, we should have separated. Yet, as the others rushed to us, I remained. I was no longer Light. Atsuko was the first to find you. Us. As those gentle arms held onto your body, Gamu, as you laughed and nearly cried tears of relief at the exact same time… I remained. I felt that swelling in your chest, that incredible feeling of warmth, of closeness, as your heart beat so fast it seemed impossible. 

And when you two kissed… I felt happy.

Now that we’ve reached the end and I’ve given you the details behind our final battle, and probably that strange sensation in the back of your mind, I suppose I should say it straightforward. With what might be the last of my power for quite some time, I managed to feed this ‘data’ to your computer, allowing it told hold this account.

I had to rewrite it several times already, and I believe you can tell, I’m no poet. 

Apologies! 

As I continued to probe the connections of the human brain and soul, it occurred to me to make this known. Just as the Earth is connected together, so is humanity, in a way that wasn’t entirely unlike our first meeting. If you understand.

Human dreams… human dreams seem wonderful. Now that I am disconnected from my first home, Gamu, with you as my host and anchor still, I have to say…

I want to find a dream, too. 

There was flood of Light back into the Earth itself, that ambient energy from humanity going back to its origin. As such, another Gaia will come, and Agul will probably be with them. If they want. I may be able to contact them soon. Who knows, perhaps we can have something like a family reunion.

Maybe we could even create our own GUARD. A garrison of Ultramen.

Maybe someday.

For now, I’ll leave you with this. I’ll always be here.

With all of you.

Earth is my star.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was at least adequate work! I enjoyed putting it together. If you see anything that needs to be edited, changed, or anything else, really, feel free to message me or just leave a comment!


End file.
